The ability to effectively deal with lightning strikes on composite materials that form structural panels for wings, fuselages and other components of a primary aircraft structure is anticipated to be an important consideration on newly developed aircraft. This is because composite materials, which are becoming increasingly common in aircraft use, are not highly conductive and cannot readily dissipate the energy from a lightning strike as efficiently as the traditional metal body components used with many present day primary aircraft. Composite materials are nevertheless highly desired because of the significant weight reduction that they can provide, in addition to the very high structural rigidity and strength they offer.
Presently, the solution to providing composite materials with the ability to dissipate electrical energy experienced during a lightning strike has involved coating the composite body panels with coatings such as Astrostrike® or other like materials. Such a solution forms an additional manufacturing step that is required to be performed after the composite preform, that forms the aircraft structural panel, has been completely manufactured. This is obviously more expensive than a solution in which the composite preform forming the structural panel is manufactured to include a means to dissipate electrical energy from a lightning strike.
It would therefore be highly desirable to provide a composite preform structural panel, as well as a manufacturing process, that integrates lightning protection directly into the primary manufacturing process of the composite preform. More specifically, it would be highly desirable to provide a structural panel and method of manufacturing same in which lightning protection is integrated into the primary manufacturing process in a manner that does not significantly increase the overall weight of the finished composite preform, and which does not significantly add to the cost or complexity of the manufacturing process of forming same.